Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.
Isaiah 26:8

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Radical Transformation

The leaves are turning. I love autumn, with its colorful dance and crisp revelry. Like peacocks displaying their finery and vying for attention, the maples dazzle with their fiery reds, daring the other trees to match their display. The gold and orange and even purple that greets me when I step outside reminds me yet again that nothing in God's creation is stagnant. Creation is constantly changing, drawing our attention to God' handiwork in new ways. The season we're in also reminds us that the grass withers and the flowers fade but the Word of God stands forever. He alone is eternal. He Himself is a fixed point, and yet He is constantly working and making changes in us. Jesus turned water into wine, death into life, slave into free, lost into found, stranger into son. He is able to transform my life for His glory like he transforms the bright greens of summer into the varied and vibrant hues of fall. However, unlike the leaves, which eventually fall and die, the life that Jesus gives is an abundant one that is eternal, that never fades. I praise Him for this glorious, glowing season and thank Him for His redemptive work on the cross, transforming me into one whom He calls His own, and clothing me in His finery.

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In Season

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer.... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by. ~Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

It’s a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it’s light out. ~Bill Watterson

Sarah J Hale

The good, the true, the tender; these form the wealth of home.

Baker's Dozen: Summer nights

Baseball on TV

Bikeride to get ice-cream

Board games at the picnic table

Catch fireflies

Fireworks off the dock

Ice cream and popcorn for supper

Late-night swim with Dad

Long walks to nowhere in particular

Movies and popcorn (up past bedtime!)

Roast Marshmallows for S'mores

Sleeping bags on the screenporch

Soccer in the yard

Tent in the back yard

A word from my friend Jane

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.

C.S. Lewis

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

Twelve Items or Less: Recipe of the week Sunshine in a Glass

3 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup boiling water

3 cups lemon juice (about 16 lemons)

2 tablespoon grated lemon peel

Directions

To get best juice from lemons, roll firmly in counter before cutting in half. (This is a great part to let little people do!)

To make simple syrup, dissolve sugar in saucepan in boiling water. Cool. Add simple syrup, lemon juice and peel to mason jar and mix well. Screw lid on jar and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Yield: 5-1/2 cups syrup (number of batches varies depending on concentration of lemonade).